U.S. Marines during exercises at the Combat Center of Twentynine Palms, in California, before leaving for the Mediterranean to join the 6th fleet (Magnum Photos)

(Newser)
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Modern warfare calls for modern war games, and that means the players can't be just armies and navies, but also civilians, the media, and the international community. Gary Anderson, the Marines' first director of war gaming, writes that victory in post-Cold War combat is no longer determined by battlefield fighters, but by the perceptions of these other groups.

As a result, "knowledge of conventional tactics is less important than understanding enemies' cultures and predicting how they will react and adapt," Anderson writes. Few people are qualified to lead these new, more complex games. "Organizers have to fall back on retired military guys like me," he adds, "but our time is passing,"